


Compatibility, Interrupted

by MK_Yujji



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Soulmates, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: Steve gave up on soulmates after his transformation.  He certainly didn't expect to find his in the future.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 165
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	Compatibility, Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Areiton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/gifts).



_Compatibility, Interrupted_

Tony Stark’s soul mark has been almost entirely obliterated by the arc reactor casing and the scar tissue that surrounds it. If it were a more typical mark - the small, delicate things that romance novels gush about and dames used to coo over - it wouldn’t be visible at all.

Another person might dismiss it entirely or wave it off as more of the scarring, but not Steve. Steve has always had an artist’s eye and a good memory. He knows those edges and lines.

They used to stretch across his own painfully skinny chest.

He tries not to look, but he can’t help but stare at the edges whenever the team is forced into any position that leaves Tony without a shirt. 

No one calls him out on it, though he knows that both Natasha and Clint have noticed.

It isn’t as taboo a subject as it was when he was a kid, thankfully, which makes it easy to find images of the complete, undamaged version of Tony’s soul mark. The only difference he can see is that the large splash of garish color somehow looks less awful on Tony than it ever had on Steve. Most of the media commentary seems to be a mix between the general cattiness that had followed the Stark heir since childhood and speculation that at least it should be easy enough to identify its match.

There’s none of the harsh unpleasantness that Steve remembers when the nuns crossed themselves any time they caught sight of it, whispering about how it was clearly the devil’s work. 

Steve’s soul mark didn’t survive the procedure.

He remembers the shocky panic he’d felt once everything had settled down from the Hydra attack and he’d really had a chance to take stock and realize that it was missing.

Devil’s work or not, the mark had been proof that there was someone out there that was his and his alone, something he’d taken comfort in while enduring Bucky’s well-meaning attempts to help by dragging him on date after date with unenthusiastic dames. Losing it had been devastating, right up until he’d been set to put the Red Skull’s plane into the arctic. Then it had been a comfort to know that whoever had been attached to the other end wouldn’t be waiting forever for someone who was never coming home.

To see it on Tony’s chest…

Steve isn’t sure how he feels about it, but he knows he spends far too much time thinking about it to try to say he doesn’t feel anything at all.

He doesn’t realize that Tony has caught him in his staring until the man himself plops down beside him on the bench in the locker room where he’s trying to get dressed and makes himself at home in Steve’s personal space. He hasn’t even bothered to pull on more than yoga pants himself, towel around his neck barely doing any good for catching the water dripping down from his hair. “Does it offend your sensibilities or what?”

No one else seems to catch him flat-footed as often as Tony Stark does. “Err…. What?”

Tony heaves a sigh and swings a leg around so that he’s straddling the bench. “I haven’t been able to figure out if it’s the arc reactor, the scar tissue, or the bits and pieces left of my soul mark, but your browser history would seem to indicate the soul mark, so really, what part of it is bothering you so much? That it’s damaged or that it’s ugly?”

“It isn’t ugly,” Steve mutters, trying desperately to look at anything else besides Tony’s chest and the remnants of familiar maroon. He's also suddenly very glad that the research into Tony's soul mark is the most dubious thing he's tried looking up on the internet. It should have occurred to him that someone probably kept track of that sort of thing.

“Uh huh… So, what? Did people not swan around with their soul marks on display back in ye on golden days? Are you shocked? Are you offended?”

Steve sighs, finally focusing on Tony’s face. “I know you know I was in the Army. I don’t understand why you keep insisting on acting like I’m some shy maiden aunt all the time.”

In point of fact, it was considered extremely uncouth to display soul marks to all and sundry, but they'd been in the middle of a war. The Army didn’t care about people’s sensibilities. Nudity, exposed soul marks, course language… none of that mattered when survival was so much more important. Steve lost his ability to care about _that_ long before he went down into the ice.

“It’s fun to wind you up,” Tony remarks offhandedly, completely unapologetic about the way he’s constantly needling at Steve. “Also, yours has to be well hidden considering how often we all see you shirtless. Is it on your asscheek? I bet it is, right? Left asscheek?”

Hands clenching, Steve grits his teeth and forces himself to take a deep breath. Tony doesn’t know… well, anything, really. Not nearly as much as he thinks he does, for certain. Even Tony Stark would be more sensitive if he had any idea what he was poking at. Another deep breath and Steve pulls on his own shirt before he answers. His fingers press against his chest for a second, missing his own mark like a phantom limb. “I don’t have one.”

Tony frowns. “Wait, what? No. No, no, no... Howard would have definitely mentioned that… although.” His eyes go hazy as his mind drifts. “Come to think of it, I don’t think he ever said anything about a soul mark one way or the other and given he had a story about just about every other little thing you ever did.. yeah, that was pretty weird, now that I think about it…”

Steve has to wonder what Howard had thought about seeing his infant son for the first time and finding the same soul mark that he’d once had a hand in erasing off of Steve Rogers.

Had he felt guilty? Sad that his son was doomed to life without a soul mate? It doesn't matter, but Steve can't help but wonder.

“Well, now you know.” Steve stands to pull his bag out of the locker he uses on the hellicarrier and tosses his grubby work out clothes in the general direction of the laundry. He doesn’t have to look to know he makes it. There had to be some trade off for losing his soul mark, after all.

When he leaves, he doesn’t look back.

~*~*~

It’s another two weeks before Tony brings it up again. This time they’re the last two haunting the communal kitchen in the Tower. It’s late and it’s been a long day of navigating SHIELD bureaucracy and Darcy trying to convince him that he needed to set up social media accounts and Steve just wants to go to bed, but his stomach hasn't stopped growling for the last hour so that's not happening any time soon. 

He isn’t sure if Tony is coming or going, but they’ve bumped into each other in the kitchen late at night and early in the morning often enough that he doesn’t even really think about it much anymore. It’s just part of living in the Tower.

“So I was digging through the old man’s files on Project Rebirth and one Steven Grant Rogers.”

It’s not the weirdest non-sequitur that Tony has ever hit him with, so Steve just shrugs it off and continues to dig around for something to fill the hole currently masquerading as his stomach. 

There’s plenty of left-overs to choose from, it’s just a matter of finding something both filling and not belonging to someone who will stab him in his sleep if he takes it.

There’s pizza that looks like it might be free game, so he snags it and the cartons of Chinese that he remembers Bruce offering him at lunch. It might be enough to make a dent, at least.

When he stands back up and heads to the microwave, Tony is standing there staring at him. “What?”

“Files. Dad. Rebirth. Seriously, aren’t you supposed to have super ears or something?”

“Honestly, I just tune you out a lot if there aren’t important key words involved.”

Tony actually looks a little scandalized at that and snaps his fingers in Steve’s direction. “I _knew_ it! Bruce told me I was being paranoid, but I _knew_ you were ignoring me!”

“Tony, 90% of what comes out of your mouth is random pop culture references that I don’t have the groundwork to understand anyways. 5% is science jargon. The other 5% is actually something I need to know or understand. I listen to that 5%.” Actually, he listens to most of it, because even if he doesn’t understand most of it, he can’t help but listen when his soul mate is talking. There’s no point saying that to Tony, though. It’s more entertaining to let him wind himself up about whether or not Steve is ignoring him.

“That is…”. Tony pauses, considering for a moment. Then he nods, looking reluctantly impressed. “A very good diversionary tactic. Full marks, Captain.”

Steve threw up a half-assed salute. “Clearly not good enough.”

“No. Because I will not be derailed on this,” Tony snags a piece of the pizza for himself and pokes at it for a moment before shrugging and taking a bite. He points the slice at Steve and swallows. “There’s no way Howard wouldn’t have said _something_ about your mark or lack thereof. He literally never stopped talking about you throughout my entire childhood. Used to bully me into going on those stupid expeditions looking for your body every summer like it was supposed to be a fun bonding experience or something. I hated your guts by the time I was ten, you know.”

“So you’ve said.” And hadn’t _that_ been a fun conversation? 

“Right, so I went back through the notes, did some digging, and I realized a couple of things.”

Steve just eats placidly, waiting for Tony to come to whatever the point is.

“First of all, the files are all heavily redacted in any place where a soul mark or lack of would be mentioned. Like, all sorts of classified information is just littered around willy nilly, but not that. Second, those searches didn’t start until after I was born, decades after you went down in the ice.”

It shouldn’t surprise Steve that Tony has worked it out, but he can’t help the way he freezes.

Tony taps his thumb against his arc reactor. “Not until after I was born with this extremely distinctive, never been matched in 40 years of wide open publicity soul mark right in the middle of my chest.”

The silence stretches between them for long minutes. Steve isn’t sure what to say, if he should say anything. Usually, Tony is all about filling up the silences with chatter, but he seems content to wait Steve out this time.

Finally, Steve sighs and sits back. Admits his uncertainty. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth. Are you, or are you not, my erstwhile soulmate?”

The thing is, Steve can still deny it. Tony may have put all the pieces together, but it’s circumstantial at best and if he denies it, Tony will have to accept that… well, no, Tony will badger and poke and prod like he always does, but if Steve doesn’t break, it will go away eventually.

He’s not sure he wants to, though. “Tony…. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Of course it matters,” Tony sputters, pulling himself up to his full height and trying to loom over where Steve is sitting. “Do you have any idea how long I spent looking for the match to this damn thing? How many shirtless pics I let get snapped on the off chance someone might actually recognize it?”

“I don’t have a mark anymore, Tony. No mark, no soul bond. That’s how it works.” 

One damaged mark and one vanished mark do not a soul bond make.

“That’s not…” Tony sighs and rubs his hand through his hair. He looks far more frustrated than he normally allows anyone but Pepper to see. “Look, so we can’t bond, so what? The mark isn’t just about the bond, you know? The bond just makes things easier, that’s all. The mark itself is about… you know, compatibility and belonging. I just happen to think that’s worth a little bit of extra work. Don’t you?”

The entire idea is crazy.

“You and me? Compatible?” Steve thinks they’re both too stubborn and set in their ways for their edges to ever fit together without a bond. They barely even manage to be two parts of a much larger team with plenty of other big personalities to help balance them out. Tony is insane if he thinks it’ll be any easier when it’s just the two of them.

Tony just grins and shrugs. “Okay, so it’ll be a lot of work. I didn’t think you were afraid of that sort of thing, Capsicle.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve sighs and pushes his food aside. “If I agree to try this with you, will you lay off the Capsicle jokes?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Tony replies, quick and amused. He isn't even slightly repentant.

Honestly, Steve doesn’t expect anything else. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I have never denied that. You’re not much better, you realize?” Tony doesn’t sound put off by that, still more amused than anything else. Maybe a little excited.

“A match made in heaven, I guess.”

Tony just beams at him and Steve can’t help but smile back. It will be harder without the soul bond to smooth things out, but he’s pretty sure that Tony’s right. 

It’ll be worth it.

fin

**Author's Note:**

> So I didn't go in depth with explaining how the soul mate phenomenon works in this particular universe, even though I probably should have. It actually does have bearing on the plot, after all. It just didn't quite work trying to put any more into it, though. It would have been another few thousand words of just soul mate explanations.
> 
> I think there's enough included to get the gist, but here's the basics set down.
> 
> 1\. Soul mates are common knowledge.  
> 2\. Soul marks are unique to the particular soul mates. No two pairs are identical.  
> 3\. There is a mental/empathic bond that typically accompanies a matched pair finding each other, but damaged and/or otherwise vanished marks render that part unviable.   
> 4\. If one soul mate dies, the other's soul mark will fade to something barely visible. 
> 
> I may write a sequel or prequel at some point, but who knows? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
